Review: East London Dance Currents 2010 - Local International

Local International: Inspired by International Women's Day Local International was the third show in East London Dance's popular Dance Currents season, and continued it with an eclectic line up featuring a mixture of dance from ballet to breaking.

Words: David Barros

Local International at Stratford Circus, Part of East London Dance Currents Opening the show was a duet from Phoenix Dance Theatre, choreographed by Alesandra Seutin entitled 1976, the story of two school children caught up in the violence in the Soweto uprising, South Africa. The stage, lit by a projection on a constructed wall, flicked through a slideshow of archived black and white photos from newspapers, with running soundbites taken from news stories recalling eyewitness accounts.

While the climax of this piece was emotional, acting out the devastation and aftermath of the horrific shooting, and its touching moment as one dancer carried the limp body of the other dancer on her back, Phoenix Dance's choreography to a soundtrack of a projector switching slides wasn't quick enough to pull you into the action before lights down.

Funmi Adewole's spoken word and physical theatre piece The Sleepwalker's Dream was as diverse and confusing as any dream you might have. Stuck between childhood and adulthood, Funmi seemed to assume a split persona.

With African tribal paints on her face she switched between a sensible adult and a playful child, reciting African proverbs that contrasted with urban references.

There were moments during Funmi's performances where you laughed at her playfulness, and moments that would leave you confused, and had there been a little more emphasis on the message it would have been less distracting and easier to grasp.

We had high expectations of Ballet Black, whose piece Kinderszenzen was the only act to feature male dancers to partner its ballerinas.

Duets, male, female, and ensemble moments all made up a varied act set to Allen Shawn's melodic Childhood Scenes piano. The lifts were perfect, the ballerina's appeared as light as a feather as they were gently placed in their partner's arms.

Yiphun Chiem's tale of her transformation in to a Belgian b-girl in Aspara rang all too accurate with us, from finding her identity, talent and character in her culture, raising lots of laughs from the audience as she made all the mistakes of a new breaker, like falling flat on her face in a freeze.

Of course, the comedy wasn't the only side of her story, as she expanded into traditional oriental dance and movement, retelling the tale of her tortured upbringing.

The closing act, Frusted, was a piece of Afro-Contemporary by Adiaspora Collective (Uchenna Dance and Vocab Dance) that had debuted at The Place last month to some rave reviews, and was a fantastic choice to close the night on a high.

Frusted was a theatrical piece focusing on the internal struggles women face on a daily basis. As the soundtrack played its opening the air was electric while the cast of five women stepped through the light to the front of the stage before the energy of the piece broke out.

Elements of African Dance mixed with waacking were evident in Adiaspora's piece, and despite the frenetic speed of the choreography in some parts, all the dancers stayed perfectly in sync.

The next show in Dance Currents is Collabo.

Click here to read a review of Collabo 2010 >>

Local International 2010 acts:

Phoenix Dance Theatre

Funmi Adewole

Ballet Black

Yiphun Chiem

Adiaspora Collective

We’re excited about... East London Dance Dance Currents Season

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